The Amy Winehouse film 'Amy' won Best Documentary Feature at Sunday’s Oscars ceremony. Mitch Winehouse and other family members have been critical of the documentary since its inception. "Amy" was directed by British filmmaker Asif Kapadia, who also made the 2010 documentary "Senna," about late Formula 1 driver Ayrton Senna.
The family of Amy Winehouse is distancing themselves from a new documentary on the singer which they say "Contains Basic Untruths." Amy Winehouse died from alcohol poisoning in July 2011 at the age of 27.
Mitch Winehouse called the film a “negative, spiteful, misleading portrayal” of Amy Winehouse.
“Always proud of my baby. Amy will not get an oscar though,” Mitch Winehouse wrote on Twitter. “Just Asif Kapadia. That is what this is all about…Asif. He’s fooled everybody.”
The Winehouse family said they "would like to disassociate themselves from the forthcoming film about their much missed and beloved Amy".
"They feel that the film is a missed opportunity to celebrate her life and talent and that it is both misleading and contains some basic untruths," read a statement from a spokesman for the family when the documentary premiered at Cannes. "The narrative is formed by the testimony of a narrow sample of Amy's associates, many of whom had nothing to do with her in the last years of her life. By misunderstanding the condition and its treatment, the film suggests for instance that not enough was done for Amy, that her family and management pushed her into performing or did not do enough to help her."
The spokesman continued that the family "feel that the film is a missed opportunity to celebrate her life and talent and that it is both misleading and contains some basic untruths. "There are specific allegations made against family and management that are unfounded and unbalanced."
The family claims the documentary misunderstands Winehouse's condition and paints Mitch Winehouse as an absent father who pushed the singer onto the stage rather than healing her problems.
The Winehouse family started and maintains the Amy Winehouse Foundation to help prevent drug and alcohol misuse on young people.
"We came on board with the full backing of the Winehouse family and we approached the project with total objectivity," a spokesperson for the film told People magazine. "We conducted in the region of 100 interviews with people that knew Amy. The story that the film tells is a reflection of our findings from these interviews."
Winehouse was born in North London. She began writing after picking up a guitar at 14. After writing for the World Entertainment News Network as a music journalist and singing for a local group, Amy was the featured vocalist with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra when she was 16 in 2000. By 2003, she was signed to Simon Fuller's 19 Management, which developed her while she sang jazz standards at clubs in and around London.
Amy received 33 nominations and has won a total of 23 film awards, including Best European Documentary at the 2015 European Film Award, two BAFTA's & upcoming nominations for Best Music Film at the 2016 GRAMMY Awards and Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature.
Amy Winehouse's career, though meteoric, was unfortunately cut short by tragedy. Born in North London, Winehouse's vocal abilities were apparent from an early age, and she began writing after picking up a guitar at 14.
Amy Winehouse is best known for her album "Back to Black," which came out in 2006. The "Back to Black" album included the hit singles "Rehab," "You Know I'm No Good" and "Love Is a Losing Game."
